The practice of baby swaddling dates back centuries, and is still common in many cultures. Swaddling involves tightly wrapping a baby securely from shoulders to feet with a small blanket.
Swaddling is useful for soothing and calming a fussy baby. Many believe that a tightly enwrapped baby feels secure because it represents a facsimile of being in the womb. Swaddling also keeps a baby warm, which is important because a newborn cannot regulate body temperature as well as an adult. Swaddling also helps newborns sleep longer because it prevents sudden movements that can cause waking. Other benefits of swaddling are also apparent. For instance, swaddling helps restrain a baby's arms and legs keeping them out of the way of breastfeeding and making the baby easier to hold, and prevents a baby, who has limited control over his arm and leg movements, from scratching himself with his nails.
Some babies need to adjust to swaddling in the beginning. Accordingly, babies must be given the chance to become comfortable with swaddling before the practice is abandoned. If a baby does not seem to like swaddling, it is recommended that one or both of his arms be left free. Proper swaddling, however, requires that the blanket fit snugly, but not so tightly as to impede blood circulation. Swaddling usually works well for babies from birth to about three or four months of age. However, babies who are used to swaddling may enjoy it for a longer period of time.
Swaddling is, accordingly, best characterized as tightly enwrapping a baby from shoulders to feet with a small blanket. One problem with swaddling a baby from shoulders to feet is that the baby must be un-swaddled in order to change the baby's diaper, which is frustrating and time-consuming, and which typically causes a sleeping baby to awaken unnecessarily. Furthermore, through normal movement a swaddled baby invariable can loosen the swaddle provided by the blanket and scratch himself with his nails or awaken from sleep. Accordingly, given the benefits of swaddling and the shortcomings of using a small blanket to swaddle a baby, the need for improvement in the field of swaddling blankets is evident.